Mr. Speaker, there are a few points on that.
It was interesting that even in exhorting us to be aware of the problem of vexatious complaints, she did not provide any kind of definition for “vexatious”. That is the problem, is it not? It is a difficult thing to define, and it will be defined subjectively by the government.
She mentioned that a lot of resources are used. A lot of resources are used in terms of any access to information request, not just ones that are “vexatious”. That is the price of living in a free and open democracy. Parliament consumes a lot of resources as well, and I think most of the time they are well spent.
In terms of alternatives, my friend, the member for Durham, made some excellent points about how the cost structure could be made to better reflect the costs of developing responses and to act as something of a disincentive. In other words, if someone is asking for a great volume of information, then perhaps there is a way of building that into the cost structure that does not deny the person the right to access that information but is reflective of the reality of that cost.
In any event, I think that for the government to be able to choose to deny, period, those requests on the basis of potentially specious claims of vexatiousness is uncalled for in a free and open society.